Live better through Living Well
FORT FAIRFIELD — Do you feel like your health concerns are having a negative impact on your quality of life? Do you have friends or family members who can no longer do the things they want to do because of health problems?
TAMC’s upcoming Living Well program is scheduled to take place in Fort Fairfield. Pictured from left are: Charlotte Hanson, a past participant in the program, and Darcy Kinney, one of the program coordinators.
The Aroostook Medical Center can help. Living Well, a free, six-week course, helps people with asthma, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, obesity and other long-term health concerns take control of their health and live a better life. After completing Living Well, participants will be better prepared to cope with sadness, deal with pain and tiredness, eat for better health, manage medications and relax and enjoy life.
Charlotte Hanson, a life-long resident of Fort Fairfield, decided to take the course after finding out about it on the TAMC website. She suffered with lung cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and other health concerns, and she was looking for a low-cost way to improve her health.
“At first I was a little bit nervous,” she said. “But everyone was just so friendly. The facilitators gave us a chance to meet each other and share some things, and that opened a lot of doors. I learned that others were going through the same things and that I could learn from them.”
The course facilitators help participants find solutions to problems, make daily tasks easier and manage stress. Participants are encouraged to set doable goals and take steps toward reaching their goals each week. Hanson’s goal was to be able to go down the cellar stairs, grab some canned goods or a basket of laundry and climb back up the stairs without stopping.
“I have 26 steps going down cellar,” she said. “I could go down and up without anything in my hands, but I would get to about the third step and I would run out of breath. Now I can go downstairs and bring up canned goods, bring up laundry if I have to, and I can go all the way to the top without stopping. Before the course, I was always trying to go from the bottom to the top. It was suggested that I go down halfway, and come back up, then go down three-quarters of the way, and then back up. And it worked.”
For Hanson and others, cost can sometimes be a barrier to improving health. Many people with long-term health concerns are on a fixed income and cannot afford certain foods and exercise equipment. The Living Well course helps participants overcome these barriers.
“We learned that a can of soup weighs the same as a weight you can buy in the store,” said Hanson. “A five-pound bag of sugar works as well as a five-pound weight. When you live on a fixed income, you have to adapt, because you just don’t have the money to go out and buy a lot of things.”
The next course begins Thursday, July 15, at Fort Fairfield Health Center. Hanson encourages those with long-term health concerns to consider signing up.
“What’s two hours out of a day if it’s going to improve your life? There is not going to be a test; you get to meet other people who are in the same situation, and you’re improving your life.”
Now that Hanson has met her goal of taking canned food and laundry up from the basement, she is hard at work on another goal.
“My goal before the end of summer is to walk from my house to Family Dollar, which is three-quarters of a mile away,” she said. “I figure if I can go up and down the stairs with one big can and two little ones, I should be able to walk to the store.”
To find out more about Living Well or to register for the course, call 768-4160.
